


lights start flashing like a photobooth.

by katarama



Series: leave this blue neighborhood. [10]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Closeted Character, Flashbacks, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Plans For The Future, Post-Memorial Cup Win, Pre-Draft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-19
Updated: 2017-04-19
Packaged: 2018-10-20 21:06:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10670766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katarama/pseuds/katarama
Summary: The thought prickles in the back of Kent’s head, though.  College.  Because he’s been thinking a lot lately.  His old friends from back home have been posting prom pictures and graduation group shots and college acceptance announcements on Facebook.  It’s hard to talk to a lot of them anymore, because they don’t quite get what Kent’s life looks like.  It’s hard for them to understand Kent’s schedule or Kent’s lifestyle or Kent’s time being split between two cities and a giant bus.It’s just.  Different.  When he’s sitting on a Memorial Cup championship win and is waiting to hear what NHL team he’s going to play for.





	lights start flashing like a photobooth.

**Author's Note:**

>   
>  **If you're new to this series, start[HERE](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10586022).**
> 
>  
> 
> Also, in real life, once you're in the Q, you can't play NCAA hockey, because you've accepted payments for playing. So the colleges wouldn't really be sending them mail trying to recruit them. However, since in OMGCP apparently you can go from major juniors to NCAA, we're gonna assume that colleges can do what they want.

**May 2009**

 

 

“Jack, there’s mail for you,” his mom shouts from downstairs.

“Be right back,” Jack tells Kent.  He eases himself up off the bed, throws on a flannel shirt, and heads out and down the hall.

He comes back with a stack of envelopes an inch thick, and without even having to ask, Kent knows exactly what it is.

“College mail?” he asks.  Jack pulls a grimace and sets the stack on his desk, the letters precariously balanced on top of an already too-high pile.  Jack adjusts them carefully to make sure the stack is stable, and then moves the sole non-family picture on his desk back in front of all of it, the big picture frame blocking all the letters from sight.  “Dude, it’s way late for colleges to be sending you that shit.”

“Like you aren’t getting just as much, too,” Jack says, which, well.  Kent can’t argue with that.  His recycling bin is stuffed full of colleges who are getting in their one last desperate letter about their school’s opportunities.

He’s pretty sure it makes more sense for colleges to be sending the letters to him than Jack, at least.  He’s actually American.  If it weren’t for the Q, Kent would have spent most of the last two years back home in New York stressing about whether to take the ACT or the SAT or neither, and about hockey scholarships and conferences and deadlines to commit.  Kent hasn’t been following how college hockey works, because he hasn’t had to.  But he’s pretty positive it’s past the deadline to commit for this year.  

He’s also pretty sure that Jack Zimmermann has never once had to consider taking a hockey scholarship and going to play college sports in America, because there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Jack was on a bullet train ride from the CHL to the NHL. 

Kent honestly doesn’t know why Jack even did this year remotely at a CEGEP.  Kent had a good reason to do distance-learning classes.  If he just went through the Quebec education system, he’d be done at year 11, which wouldn’t fly as a full high school education back home in New York.  The tutors said he could do correspondence courses from his state of residence, and his mom put her foot down and said he was taking New York classes remotely, and that was that.  He knows it doesn’t hurt to have a backup plan, and that he’s not going to want to get a GED when he’s 35 and approaching too old to play hockey, if his career even lasts that long.  So he didn’t fight it too hard, even though a lot of the other guys teased him for still being in high school at 18.  

Jack won’t have to worry about college, though, or about backup plans.  Jack will be that guy playing hockey until they tell him to stop.  And when he’s done playing hockey, he’ll have a prime gig as a hockey commentator or a coach until he’s ready to finally retire.  If Jack didn’t want to, he wouldn’t ever have to worry about school another day in his life.

The thought does prickle in the back of Kent’s head, though.  College.  Because he’s been thinking a lot lately.  His old friends from back home have been posting prom pictures and graduation group shots and college acceptance announcements on Facebook.  It’s hard to talk to a lot of them anymore, because they don’t quite get what Kent’s life looks like.  It’s hard for them to understand Kent’s schedule or Kent’s lifestyle or Kent’s time being split between two cities and a giant bus.  It’s just.  Different.  When he’s sitting on a Memorial Cup championship win and is waiting to hear what NHL team he’s going to play for.

“Have you ever wondered what it’d be like?” Kent asks.  “Going to uni?  Actually physically being there?  Maybe not even playing hockey there, but just being a student.  Going to class.  Having a social life that doesn’t revolve around sports.”

There are several jokes to be made there.  About Jack possibly living a life without playing hockey, or about Jack having a robust social life without Kent dragging him out of the house.  Kent isn’t going to make them.  Because he’s actually kind of serious.  

“Not really,” Jack admits as he wanders over from his desk and sits down onto his bed next to Kent.  Kent leans back against Jack, taking a second to shift around until he finds the most comfortable place to rest his head.  “It’s always been hockey, for me.”

“I have,” Kent says, because it hasn’t always been hockey for him.  His mom has sunk money she didn’t always have into hockey for him.  He’s worked his ass off every day so that wasn’t for nothing, but it was a very real chance that at any point along the way, things wouldn’t pan out.  There was every chance he’d wind up just like so many kids who dream of being a pro sports player.  There was every chance he’d wind up hanging out in upstate New York with shattered dreams and nothing to show for all that money and all those hours spent, working one or two jobs and living with his mom and saving up to maybe take night classes at the community college to get an associate’s degree.  

“We’d live in the dorms, probably be roommates.  It’d mean we wouldn’t ever have to do that tie on the door thing you always see in movies when someone’s getting sexiled.  We’d go to class every day.”  Kent pauses.  “You’d probably like it more than me.  I bet you’d be a history major.  Art minor, maybe.  You’d be told by every single one of your relatives that your degrees aren’t marketable.”

Jack huffs a laugh into Kent’s hair, even though Kent knows it’s totally true.  “You’d be something with math,” Jack adds.  “Math and bullshitting.”

“So business,” Kent says, smiling.  “You’d joke to your family that that’s what you kept me around for, me and my accounting major.”

Kent’s voice holds firm through the last bit, even as he can practically picture in his head the way Jack’s eyebrows are probably furrowing.  Kent’s a little bit glad he can’t see Jack’s face.  But this is as much a part of it for Kent as anything else.  “You could drag me to all your boring history seminars, and I’d sit through them just because you liked them.  I’d try to get you to make out with me in the bathroom for most of it, if it was really boring.  If we were normal people on a college campus, no one’d care if we weren’t straight.  We could hold hands in public.  We could go out on dates and scowl at the homophobic old people at restaurants who saw us and acted like we’re just good friends.  We could-”

“Kenny,” Jack says softly.  It should deter Kent, should be a warning, but it only makes Kent more heated.  It’s been a week since the Memorial Cup, and the two of them and what they’ve been doing has just been hovering there, untouched.  It’s given Kent way too much time to think.

“Not that we couldn’t do that stuff now,” Kent says.  He’s really getting into dangerous territory now.  “Your dad has said that it’s a friendlier atmosphere than it used to be-”

“My dad didn’t say that,” Jack says.  “That’s what you heard.  He said it’s something young players still have to be pretty careful about, especially on a large scale-”

“Just.  Stop,” Kent says.  He sits up so he’s facing Jack, and he was right about Jack’s brow furrowing, Jack’s face dead serious.  Jack listens.  He falls quiet, for just a moment.  “Think about what we could do by coming out.”  Kent knows that his voice is sounding increasingly wild, increasingly pleading.  Increasingly wistful.  “Think about what it could do for young players.  Ones who have only been told to keep their mouths quiet about who they like.  Ones who don’t think there’s a place for them playing hockey.  And then just imagine it for a second, what it could do for _us_.  What if we didn’t have to hide it?  I know that stresses you out even more that it stresses me out, thinking about going every single day of your life and pretending you’ve never stared at a dude and tripped over your tongue a little bit.  You’re going to be in front of the cameras the rest of your life.  Because of you and what you’ve accomplished, this time, and not just your parents.  There’s going to be pressure on _you_ to be perfect and on message, and it’s only going to be harder to come out once you’ve got your team breathing down your neck.  Your life isn’t going to be your own anymore if you just hide.  What if you could be out, and I could be out, and that would be okay?”

Jack stares straight ahead at the stack of letters on his desk for a long moment, completely silent.  Or maybe he isn’t staring at the letters.  Maybe he isn’t wrapped up in all the what ifs that Kent is.  All the wild, idealistic thoughts about riding off into the sunset with his dignity and his identity, without having to pretend that a boy isn’t the single most important person in his life right now.  Maybe he doesn’t get the sporadic, intense spurts of carelessness, the desire to say fuck it all and just do what he wants without giving a shit about the consequences.  Maybe he doesn’t lie there at night like Kent does, wondering what would happen if, the day after the draft, when the team is already stuck with him, he opens his mouth and makes the NHL confront the fact that their number one and number two drafts are both queer as shit, and the joke was on them all along.

Maybe he’s staring at the picture of Jack and Kent sitting on the desk in the ugly frame Jack and Kent picked out together as a joke.  The picture that Jack tucks inside his desk drawer when he has the guys from his team or the guys from school over, even though most of them were there when it was taken.  The one where Kent is sitting on Jack’s lap and they’re both holding drinks and Jack’s cheeks are rosy and he’s staring at Kent and smiling at Kent like he’s is the only other person in the world, even as Kent peace signs for the camera.

“You’re getting your head in the clouds again,” Jack says simply.  Like he’s being the reasonable one.  Like he can just wait Kent out on this, let Kent simmer down and go back to acting like it doesn’t matter that they both somehow thought that pretending to be straight for the rest of their lives was the best option here.

“No,” Kent says.  “Getting my head in the clouds would be imagining the two of us actually going to college together.  Running away from hockey and pressure and families and just going to school like two normal fucking human beings.  This is just… wanting to be a fucking human being instead of a hockey robot who plays along and pretends I’m not really fucking tired of this bullshit.”

Jack goes quiet for a little bit too long, and Kent takes a breath.  Softens himself, redirects his anger as best he can.  Takes another deep breath, forces himself to hold his tongue, even though he wants nothing more than to keep lashing out, to keep seething.

“It’s not your fault we’re in this position,” Kent says, gentler, though strained.  “I’m not going to do anything you aren’t okay with.  I’ve just been thinking about this stuff a lot lately.  Either way, we’re in this together, right?”

“Yeah,” Jack says.  He sounds tired, and Kent knows that he’s about to drop this subject, even though it’s been pressing at the back of Kent’s skull for a week, like a constant low grade ache.  Kent’s head finds its resting place on Jack’s shoulder, again, and his hand finds Jack’s.  “We’re in this together,” Jack repeats.

It’s a good long while before either of them says anything again.  Kent almost feels bad - he can feel the way Jack’s breathing is heavier for a while, like he’s trying to find a steady rhythm, trying to calm himself down as much as Kent is trying to tamp down on all the frustration he’s been keeping held inside.  It’s a while before they go back to neutral conversation, before they eventually slide back into sprawling out on the bed together and laughing and then kissing, Kent’s lips tingling and his heart pounding in his chest.

He wishes he could do this for every single day of the rest of his life.  Not the fighting.  Not the hiding.  Not the keeping all his affection to the privacy of their rooms.  Not the feeling like he’s treading on glass whenever he’s honest with Jack about what he wants.

But he wishes he could experience this, Jack’s big, goofy, fond smile and Jack’s solid weight next to him and Jack’s quiet “haha” of a laugh that only Kent knows is to hide how ridiculous and wonderful and _loud_  his real laugh is.

It strengthens his resolve, when it should probably leave him clinging to what he has before it’s gone.

He doesn’t want to give this up, ever.

**Author's Note:**

> On tumblr [here](http://polyamorousparson.tumblr.com).


End file.
